Discouragement

One of the toughest things writers have to face is fairly constant rejections. It can be devastating. Particularly after you've spent years working on a manuscript and have gotten through a couple of turnstiles. You're so close, but… And then, if you do manage to get published, that's not the end of it, either. I'm not talking about additional rejections from agents, publishers and editors. No, sir. I'm talking about the most devastating rejection of all, reader rejection. Yeah. Talk about messing with your mind. You got an agent to who liked the manuscript, an editor who liked it enough to buy it, and you got that sucker published only to get the ultimate slap in the face.

Well, buck up. What's the worst that can happen? So they don't buy your book. That's about it. No one is going to arrest you (unless you wrote something you shouldn't ought to have written) and generally speaking, no one is going to point with horror at you when you walk down the street. Granted, I don't know what you look like, so I supposed it is within the realm of possibility that they actually will scream and run away when they see you coming, but it won't be because you wrote a flop. And maybe it wasn't a flop. Who really knows? If no one bought it then no one knows what's in your book to judge whether it's a flop, so you do have that going for you. Okay, maybe that doesn't really help.

Right. It doesn't help. If you write a book, it gets published, and no one subsequently buys it, well, that is a rough one. Basically, your choice is to waste your time on promotion or get back to the job of writing. I'm not saying promoting your book is bad—you have to do that to some degree. You've seen all the blogs, websites, articles, and advice about promoting yourself. Yes, you have to do it. But if it's not working or if you're spending all your time on promotion you need to take a step back. You need to get back to work.

Sometimes, you are better off getting other books published then spending 80% of your time trying to promote a book that is just not selling. Yes, it is heartbreaking. Yes, it makes you feel like you are a complete failure and don't know what the heck you are doing. And it makes you ask yourself what you were thinking to believe you could write a book. All those terrible things and all those vicious voices in your head will ring loud and victorious. Your supportive spouse may even say, "Honey, maybe it's for the best. Just let it go and forget about it. I hate to see you suffer like this."

Eat chocolate. Watch mindless television.

Then go back and write some more. Because it's the only real choice you have.

Strangely enough, if you can write another book, and then another book, and somehow manage to get those published (despite your first-book-flop) you may find that elusive audience. You may find readers who do connect with your stories. And each book will be better than the last. And your audience will build. It may build slowly, but in fact, producing more saleable manuscripts and getting them out there is the best promotional move you can make. Don't throw money, time and sweat into past endeavors. Decide on a limit and then resolutely move on, even if it does hurt.

In the end, you'll have a backlist of books readers can choose from. And sometimes, having that list of publications gives you the credibility readers are looking for in order to make that first purchase and take a chance on an unknown author.

Writers write. Make your writing come first and all the other related tasks come second or even third. And strangely enough, you may find that writing is one of the best ways to cure the rejection blues.

Getting Characters Onstage

Started reading Jeffrey Deaver's The Sleeping Doll last night—I love his books. Although I've only read around 50 pages, I realized that I finally stumbled upon something that I may have done correctly and figured out for myself. It's the difficult process of getting a large cast of characters in front of the reader without hopelessly confusing them.

I wrote a manuscript—a Regency Mystery—a couple of years ago. It's called The Vital Principle. The first scene is a séance and there are 13 people present. One of them kills their host. So I had to introduce all 13 to the reader and not confuse the heck out of everyone. Initially, I had the heroine, Pru, study each participant as she glanced around the table. I made sure each character had some defining characteristic and hook the reader could use to identify the character. But it was still confusing—too many people and names to keep track of. Then I hit upon the idea of just saying, there are 13 people present. The people only get "introduced" as they are "needed on stage" because they are doing or saying something. Which stretched out the introductions over a longer interval so that readers could meet them "one at a time".

It seemed to work better that way.

Then low and behold, when I started reading Deaver's The Sleeping Doll and was relieved to see that I inadvertently stumbled upon an appropriate technique. There are a lot of characters that Deaver wants you to know about, right up front in this book. Most of them form the task force given the assignment of catching an escaped killer. And he did exactly the same thing I did. What a relief to discover that I was heading in the right direction.

So let's look at what Deaver did.

First: He introduces the bad guy and a surviving victim, the Sleeping Doll, in a "newspaper article" about the bad guy's murder spree and subsequent conviction. So we learn the bad guy's name and the fact that he committed Manson-esque murders, so we know enough about him to understand he's a really, really bad guy. We, the reader, have now "got him". We're also aware of the girl dubbed the Sleeping Doll, although we have not met her.

By the way, an important part of meeting a character is learning some basic traits or characteristics about that character. This lets you begin to build a picture of the character and gives you a "handle" for the character. Sort of like: Oh, this guy's an insane, Manson-esque killer with charisma. Okay, got him. The difference between this and the Sleeping Doll is that all we know about the girl is that she was asleep in a pile of dolls when the murders occurred and she escaped. So we don't know anything about her, per se. We know nothing about what she looks like, acts like or her character. So although we know her name, we don't know her. Yet.

This intro "newspaper article" runs for about 2 pages.

Second: Deaver introduces Kathryn Dance. She's the heroine who will have to recapture the killer, Daniel Pell. In this chapter, Kathryn is interviewing Pell. We learn all about Kathryn, her skills as an interviewer, and what she looks like. We get a closer look at Pell and learn more about his personality. We learn he is a powerful, in-control bad guy even though he's in prison. And we learn that Kathryn is just as smart and powerful in her way, so the "contest between them" is pretty evenly matched. This sets up tension because neither one is obviously weaker than the other. They are worthy opponents.

This section runs for about 6 pages. It "cements" the primary characters, Kathryn and Pell, and the reader now knows how each character talks, acts, and thinks.

I'm giving you pages so you can see how long Deaver takes to accomplish his introductions. It's not very long and you're given a lot of information about the characters. By the end of this section, you have a pretty good feel for Kathryn and Pell.

Third: Now the secondary characters start to roll in. But not too quickly. First we get Alonzo Sandoval. He gets a description and short exchange with Kathryn before we get the next character: TJ. He gets a longer paragraph of description, and a brief exchange with Kathryn. Then we get Juan Miller. He gets a very short description and a few words. Then all these characters discuss what is going on. That's three characters, but by now, we know Kathryn pretty well and we can pick them up pretty well.

Through the character interactions on the next couple of pages, Deaver feeds us tags to hang on the three new characters so we can remember who they are. Juan Miller is lanky and has a scar on his hand that is the remnant of a removed gang tattoo. TJ is unconventional and wears a T-shirt under a plaid sports coat. Sandoval is handsome and round with a thick black moustache.

These three get three pages of interactions with Kathryn. Not long for three characters, but he gives you tags and the reader is ready to move on.

Fourth: Back to Pell and his escape. We meet two guards but not for long. Although we get to know them well enough and for long enough to feel sorry for them. They get several pages though as Pell escapes. (And okay, it's not like I'm ruining the story—there wouldn't be a story if he didn't escape at the beginning and come on. You didn't think he was going to escape without bloodshed, did you? Come on.)

The next few chapters are the same—you get the point. He gives you a couple of pages as each new character is pulled into the drama. You get descriptions and interchanges with the main characters so you get a "feel" for how each character acts, speaks, and looks. You get tags to help identify the characters. A tag can be a personality trait like some weird speech pattern or a particular talent/skill such as Kathryn's interview skills. Or, a tag can be a physical trait like Juan's scar left from the tattoo removal. It doesn't really matter what the unique trait it, as long as it gives your reader a handle to remember which character is which. It helps if you also remind the reader about the relationships, as well, for example which character is a co-worker, which is a boss, etc, so the reader can establish those things as well. It lets the reader build the "society" of your story.

To summarize: If you have a lot of characters to introduce to your readers, remember a few things…

1. Only introduce characters at the point at which they have something to do or say. Don't just introduce all the characters in the room if some of them are just sitting and listening. Only describe them when they actually take some action or say something.
   
2. Try to give each main character a few pages so the readers can get to know them before moving on to minor characters. If you can do what Deaver did and get the two main characters interacting with each other for a few pages right away, it's even better. We can get the measure of the two characters and see if they are evenly matched, what their goals, strengths and weaknesses are, so the tension can begin to rise. It is the interaction between the two, and the relative strengths of the characters that will give rise to your reader's initial level of interest and tension. Tension is good but remember, you can't have tension in a situation where one opposing force is much stronger than the other.
   
3. Make sure you give the reader handles for the characters. And try not to make the handles stereotypical. Like having a bespectacled librarian with her hair in a bun. Give us a librarian who looks like Arnold Swartzenegger. And is a woman. ;-) Repeat the handles when the characters are onstage so the readers immediately identify them. I'm not saying you should be repetitive and always say: "the muscle-bound librarian" every time you have the librarian in the scene. Vary the description—and toward the end, you can even let it go because by that time, the reader will know. But at the beginning, reminding the reader that the librarian's sleeves actually split when she nonchalantly picked up a carton of new books will remind the reader. Speech patterns are excellent handles because characters should each have their own way of speaking that should not be interchangeable with other characters.
   

That's it.

Learning and Life

This evening while I was trying to figure out what the heck I was going to write about, I wasted an hour or so playing Age of Mythology (Gold Edition!). There is something about building up an economy for the express purpose of wiping your opponent from the map that is very soothing to my nerves, shattered by dealing with problems all day long. But I deliberately keep it at the moderately hard level because I actually want to win. For once. By the end of a long day, I need something to give me a boost of confidence. It's nice to think you can do something right, even if it's just creating monsters and killing off your opponent.

Anyway, the game gets my brain going. Or gives me confidence to tackle more problematic tasks like writing. I've often wondered how I come across in these blogs—I mean—how do I have the nerve to set myself up as if I know anything? One of the more disheartening aspects of getting older is that you actually begin to realize how little you really do know. All the confidence and assurance of your youth is gradually beaten out of you over the years until you realize how big and complex the world is and how very little impact you have on it. And how very little you truly know. Because there are vast mountains of knowledge out there. You can skim the cliff tops and you can explore a few of them, but for every mountain you scale, five more thrust their way up out of the earth's mantle. The higher you get, the more mountains you see. And that's good because one way to stay young is to keep on learning.

And that's what my blogs are really, truly about. They are not about me trying to give anyone else advice. They aren't about me trying to act like I know something. I know very little. In fact, I'm fairly shocked when anyone thinks I know anything. I know a little about a lot of things. I know a little more about a few things. But I don't know a lot about anything—at least not to the level I would like.

One of the things I have learned is that if I, personally, want to explore a new subject, whether it be writing, gardening or how ACLs get applied in Windows 2003 Server, what I have to do is pretend to teach it. Of course it's really better if I actually do teach it because people ask questions and force you to think. The prospect of questions will force you to learn more out of self-defense and the desire to avoid looking like a total idiot.

This blog is my way of teaching—me. If others benefit, well, goody for them. I actually hope people ask questions because that forces me to explore more, research, and find the best answers. Which is another opportunity for me to learn more. So, yes. It's all about me.

If you want to learn how to become a writer, then my advice to you is to write. And try to teach someone else how to write. And write about writing. The process of organizing your thoughts on various aspects of writing, e.g. structure, plotting, characterization, vocabulary, etc, will force you to learn it. Pick out examples from other books to show someone (even if you're just showing yourself).

I recently went through some of my favorite books and made copies of the pages where the authors introduce a character. I wanted to explore precisely how one character (the point of view character) describes another character to introduce the second character to the reader. How the descriptions stay in the voice and point of view of the POV character. How the POV character subtly inserts his or her opinions and prejudices into their descriptions and manages to convey the emotional climate of the scene through small inflections in the description. To me, the best descriptions are actually thinly disguised opinions by the POV character. The description is as revealing of the POV character as it is of the subject of the description. Double duty.

In fact, it is my conclusion that the best descriptions are not descriptions at all but internal dialog where the POV character is expressing an opinion about another character or subject. That's why some descriptions are dry-as-dust and skippable: because the author just wrote a technically accurate description without expressing any opinion about it. Scenery, whether it be a landscape, building, or character, is only interesting in the manner in which it brings out some emotion, feeling, or opinion in the person describing it. We really don't care if the room was 10' x 12' square with blue walls. We are interested, however, if the POV character observes a 10'x12' square room with blue walls and feels those walls closing in on him, suffocating him under depressing pall of sterile, pale blue.

So I blog to learn. Anything else is just gravy.

Rejection Collection

Just because you get published doesn't mean you'll never see another rejection again. Or that rejections will get easier or that the proportion of rejections to contracts improves. Naturally, for some people, they are so talented that their first manuscript receives a contract and they never need to worry about rejections. Others work through the rejections, get that first contract and thereafter have only a few or none rejections.

That hasn't worked for me. In fact, I'm stumbling around badly at the moment, having just gotten slapped down a few more times and really wondering what path I should be following.

In my last few blogs, I've mentioned difficulties editing what I've written. I really do make things worse by editing them, more often than not. Especially if I'm trying to do what someone else tells me to do. And I've noticed this before. I don't know how unusual this is or if I'm some weird alien creature, but in almost everything I've tried, my first "cut" at it is the best. When I was learning the piano, the first time I played an unknown piece, it sounded the best. After that, the more I practiced, the worse I got. Same with cooking. The first time I made a recipe, it always came out extraordinarily well. Each subsequent time…a little less well. Practicing and repetition, for me, is not generally a good thing. I have no idea why and I fervently wish it wasn't true because a lot of things require practice. And yet instead of yielding better results, repetition and trying to build a skill, in my case, yields declining results.

So I need to learn to wield the editing scalpel a little less vigorously. In fact, I think it's safe to say that I need to not do a lot of editing—I need to add in the things I missed on the first draft (clarification of emotions & motivations and descriptions). Polish and remove actual mistakes. And leave it the hell alone.

I am totally taking Margery Allingham's method to heart.

1. You write the first draft to get it all down on paper
   
2. You add in what you missed or forgot in the second draft
   
3. You take out all non-essentials in the third draft
   
4. You polish
   

That's it.

So after the last destructive category 5 hurricane of rejections, I'm going to let some of my manuscripts rest for a while. I'm going to finish a mystery I've been working on, tentatively entitled: Whacked! (A computer geek girl, her elderly completely stoned uncle, a cop who wants to quit and be a writer, and the murder of a man who gist needed killin' in a little southern town called Peyton...).

And I'm going to try a new tactic. After I get most of the first draft done, I'm going to put a little polish on the first few chapters, draft up a synopsis, and send it to my agent to find out if she thinks it is something she can sell. I sure hope so. I may not even wait until I've finished the first draft.

That's my plan. It's the best I can do to avoid sinking into despair, although I'm nearly convinced at this point that I couldn't write my way out of a paper bag even if Margery Allingham dictated it to me. I can't plot, do characterization, or write a comprehensible sentence. But I am stubborn. Really stubborn. And I got one book published. By God, before I die, I'm going to get another one.

This and That

I'm deep in edits, trying to rework a story that is the first in a related set of Regency-set stories, so I'm a little harried this week. I don't have any new, brilliant words of wisdom. I'm just trying to keep my head above water. Mostly because, editing is NOT my friend. When I edit something, I tend to make it worse instead of better. Sometimes it's because I'm trying to make it something it is not. For example, "increase the sensuality". Well, if the story did not have that focus to begin with because it is not relevant, than just trying to shove it in is not going to suddenly make it 100% better and sell it to some editor 1/3 my age. I am so freaking sick of the whole subject of sensuality and the erotic trends in the market that I've basically stopped taking classes in writing or listening to any other writers because I really don't care.

What is this emphasis over one small, paltry aspect of the story?

And it's not that my stories don't sometimes include those elements if the characters "go there". In fact, I have one manuscript which I've hesitated to show to anyone, like my agent, because it starts out with "one of those scenes". Right in the very beginning. First chapter. Page one. But it was where the character was at the time. It is not the central focus of the story. It just happened.

Anyway, enough about that. It's a pet peeve of mine because I'm so sick of listening to everyone babble on about it, but it's like any other element of writing. You include what is necessary for the story and that's pretty much all there is to it.

So…whatever. I have discovered, though, that trying to trim down my already fairly lean-and-mean writing is not good either.

Brief descriptions for main characters does not cut the mustard. In fact, I've learned that the best way to create a cardboard character is to throw in a couple of lines about their physical appearance and move on with the story. It ends up sounding like a laundry list or wanted poster. What you really need to do is write a long paragraph that isn't so much a description as it is what the other character thinks about the one described. This means, basically, that there really are some rules:

1. You can't describe your heroine until you are in the hero's (or some other character's) viewpoint. Because otherwise, you've got the heroine describing herself—which is never a good thing unless it's something like: she's in some store's dressing room trying on a dress and she can't get the zipper closed because she's gained about ten pounds over the Thanksgiving holidays. But for God's sake, don't have her stare in the mirror and itemize her hair, eyes and complexion. There is NOTHING worse than a mirror scene. It's lazy writing and it stinks. Never have a character describe himself or herself. Never, ever include a line like: She threw a lock of her golden hair over her shoulder. Just whose point of view is that in, anyway?
   
2. Unless this is literary fiction, you—the author—can't just describe the characters, either. You can't play God for a few minutes and stare down at your characters and describe them to the reader. Unless you're a member of Monty Python and are being funny.
   
3. So…one character has to describe the other. If it's your hero describing the heroine, he has to do it in his own words. Not in some poetic drivel, unless he's a poet. And don't use words like beautiful. It has no meaning—the word has lost its power due to overuse and just general malaise. Are her features perfect like Grace Kelly? Or does she have the exotic sensuality of Gene Tierney with her pouting mouth and hint of an overbite. That overbite has made millions of men lose it—and it's the kind of thing your hero should and would notice. Men often have a fixation with mouths because—okay, we're not going to go there… Anyway, more often than not, it's the small things that one person might consider an imperfection that drives another person insane with lust. A big nose on a man; an overbite on a woman; heavy-lidded, sleepy eyes. Whatever. But the thing to note is that it's not a description, per se, but the character's reaction to these attributes. What is it about the heroine that the hero really notices? What conclusions does he draw because of what he sees or smells? Is she a sloppy, rumpled dresser? Does he find it indescribably erotic that she's a mess, smells of warm, salty flesh, and looks like she just fell out of bed? Or…you tell me.
   

The best descriptions build up a picture from the opinions and reactions of the point-of-view character. The character doing the describing.

Yeah, it's a pain in the patootie. It means you have to think about it. You have to think about what the heroine sees, feels, and reacts to when she sees the hero. You have to use her words—not your words.

In essence, the author has to step out of the way and let the characters do the describing, reacting, and feeling. In fact, the author often needs to just step out of the way and let the characters tell the story.

It's not that easy to do.

Getting Help

I am addicted to books, I'm saying that right up front. For years, I spent hundreds of dollars on technical books about operating systems and programming for my day job. I finally stopped doing that about three years ago when I realized that I had reached a plateau where the books were simply not advanced enough to help me. The other determining factor, however, was even more interesting to me: I actually prefer documentation available on the computer. If I have it in electronic form, the computer can perform a search instead of me laboriously pulling down book after book, looking for one small description of a reghack I need to do. I never thought I would prefer electronic information to an actual, paper book.

My. How times change.

However, I raise these issues because from a writing perspective, reference material interests me.

First, in the complete antithesis of my day job, I found when I first started out writing, books on writing were interesting but not particularly valuable. What was valuable was actually…writing. And activities such as entering writing contests and doing/receiving critiques. Forming a partnership with another writer to perform critiques was particularly helpful. Over time, you may find critique partners are less valuable (e.g. you've learned where to put your commas) or don't have the time to do critiques in return. Writing contests are no longer useful.

You reach a mid-level plateau. You may even have sold by this time, but you're not burning with success. This is when I've found books on writing to become less of an intellectual exercise and more specifically helpful.

Actually, there's only one writing book that I've found to be helpful enough to recommend: The Techniques of the $elling Writer by Dwight Swain. Get it and read it. You can actually improve your writing if you pay attention. He covers things like:

• Choosing the correct word
  
• Building a character's motivations, reactions, and feelings to create the story's movement
  
• Techniques like how to incorporate a flashback effectively
  

Stuff like that. I'm deliberately staying away from mentioning his "scene and sequel" information that everyone else babbles about because it's always provoked a "well, duh" reaction in me. This book is useful, however, but it is more useful to someone who has already done some writing and is looking for ways to go beyond the basics.

I really recommend this book. I actually didn't buy it for several years because I had bought other books on writing that ended up serving as dust collectors and not much else. So I didn't think that one more book on writing would really help me.

I have a shelf of books that I bought because other writers recommended them. Turns out that the brief descriptions given about the books were all I needed. I didn't need the book itself. It just took 250 pages for the author to describe what others encapsulated in the 250 word concept and description. A lot of books on "how to plot" are like that. Read the blurb on the back, glance through the charts, and you're done. Get the concept and get out.

There is one exception to this which I do go back to occasionally and that is the book on Creating Character Emotion. You don't have to read the whole thing, but reading a few of the examples really does help you understand how to show emotions like anger without just telling the reader that the character was angry. I do refer back to this book to refresh myself on ways to portray emotion, but again, if the book was half the length it is, it would be enough. The author really didn't need to have a chapter on each emotion. Can we say…redundant?

If I had written the book (easy to say, right?) I would not have made chapters on each emotion. I would have made chapters on the various techniques used to portray emotion and then included the example of the emotions that used the technique. That's why I never read the entire book. It started to repeat techniques in the guise of showing how to portray different emotions.

Entirely unnecessary. Which emotion is being portrayed is entirely unimportant. The crux of the matter is how to portray any emotion.

So after a few chapters, I marked which "emotions" were really examples of a specific way to portray an emotion—any emotion—so that I could refer back to the techniques.

The fact that I bothered to go back and mark the techniques, however, shows you that there was some very valuable and interesting information in that book. It is definitely worthwhile reference material.

However, I still have one complaint which circles back to my first paragraph: I've reached a point where I actually prefer my reference material to be online. I wish I could have gotten Swain's book as an e-book. I also wish the character emotion book was available as an e-book.

As far as other reference material: I heartily recommend the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). It is invaluable although exceptionally expensive. (I got it free for joining a book club in the distant past—otherwise I wouldn't have it, either.) I wish I had it online. It is so much easier to look things up on the computer than to stop and drag out some book. When I get rich and famous, the first thing I'm going to buy is the OED on CD (right after I get the D.R. Field & Brush Mower).

I am always using words that aren't in the standard online dictionaries. I also find most Thesauri to be pathetic. (What the heck is the plural of Thesaurus? Thesauruses? If it follows the Latin, one would think the plural would be Thesauri—and my speller doesn't barf at it so maybe that's right, although it doesn't barf at Thesauruses, either.)

Anyway, I don't use particularly obscure or complex words—just different words. Most are easy, most are words everyone has heard and used before. It's just that these lazy, limited, popular dictionaries and thesauri don't contain them. Although the Microsoft versions seem better than other e-dictionaries I've bought like Websters… Who would have thunk it?

So—that's it. Get Swain. It's about the most help I can offer other writers.

Writing Conferences

The Romance Writers of America conference is being held this week in Dallas, Texas. Unfortunately, I can't attend this year. Or maybe that's a good thing because conferences often depress me. However, my problems aside, I really encourage anyone who wants to be a writer to attend conferences. Particularly if the conference has seminars or classes that can help you improve your writing. Assuming you are open new ideas and don't believe that your writing is so good there is no way it can be improved.

Yeah. Right.

Be aware, however, that conferences can be a bit depressing if your confidence is fragile. When you see all the authors out there and start to realize how great some of them are, and you go back and read your stuff, you may begin to have doubts. You may think you're the worst writer on the planet and will never sell. Or that what you've sold is total dreck.

So you need to prepare to have your confidence shattered and continue writing anyway. Because everything, and I mean everything, can be improved upon. You can learn. If you put enough sweat into it, learn from your mistakes, remain open to new ideas, and don't let the rejections get to you, you may eventually get published. Of course, there are no guarantees.

And even when you're published, you should be aware that you must continue to learn and perfect your craft. Because there is always the second contract you have to earn.

One of the biggest fallacies I see when I talk to writers who attend conferences is the profound belief that what they just heard in class doesn't apply to them. Some writers attend the workshops with an open mind, ready to learn, tempered by the notion that their own writing does not suffer from whatever weaknesses or problems are under discussions. Or worse, they say, "Yes, I understand completely about overuse of adjectives and adverbs. But I have a very lush writing style and that is just my style. So it would be foolish of me to change it—it is perfect the way it is. But other writers should really pay attention to the advice from that class."

Sigh. All styles can be refined. All styles can be improved. Even the most lush, sensuous style can suffer from overwriting and the way too excessive use of adjectives and adverbs. Or infelicitous comparisons, similes, and descriptions.

[ AND TOTALLY BESIDE THE POINT…

And I can't help it, I've got to use Gil Mayo's observation from The Gil Mayo Mysteries on BBC America, about a shampoo called, Maximum Infinity. As he put it: infinity is, by definition, infinite. You can't modify it and make it more, or less, infinite. I don't think that's exactly what he said, but you get the gist of it. And translated into my words: unless you are writing something for some humorous effect, don't be a jerk about it. Watch your modifiers. Understand what the language you are using actually means.

Oh, and if you haven't seen The Gil Mayo Mysteries on BBC American—go watch iti! It's a brilliant show! Of course now that I've discovered it and have become a huge fan, it will probably be canceled. All the shows I like are canceled almost immediately. Just like all the stocks I buy immediately crash and never recover.

Anyway, The Gil Mayo Mysteries is the ONLY show I actually watch on television—not having time to actually watch television on a regular basis. Other than the occasional: Absolutely Fabulous, of course.

So, I adore Alistair McGowan as Gil Mayo and the absolutely brilliant new actor Huw Rhys as DI Kite. Huw Rhys has the most expressive face—he is a joy to watch. He can say more by just rolling his eyes than most other actors can convey in an entire speech. Of course McGowan is perfect as the deadpan, precise Gil Mayo. God, I love to watch those two. This show is fantastic. It is so funny and I even love the small bit before the show begins when the BBC recommends that American viewers may wish to use their close captioning feature because of the accents…What a riot. I always start the DVD recorder a little early to catch that part.

And yes, Huw Rhys is from Wales and has a achingly beautiful accent, but I can't say as I've needed the close captioning feature yet. J I just wish they would have some decent pictures on the BBC America site for the cast. The one group shot has a pretty appalling picture of poor Mr. Rhys.

And lest we forget the women: I'm totally jealous of Jessica Oyelowo as the character of Alex. She is truly gorgeous. Not to mention that her outfits are fabulous and in some odd way remind me of the creations by my favorite costume designer, Edith Head. Sometimes I really wish that well-tailored, good looking dresses that look good on an actual female body with curves would come back into style. It's so rare to see well-constructed clothing with flare. Maybe that's one of the reasons the character of Alex looks so good—she often wears "costumes" that in fact look well-made and good on a woman.

There is something tragically missing from today's gowns—they just lack style. They look good on hangers. They look good draped over a stick figure. But none of them really look well made or good on an actual woman with an actual woman's body. And the more "high fashion" they are, the worse they look. Some just frankly look like someone took a bolt of expensive fabric, basted a few seams along strange-and-wacky bias lines and threw it over the poor, starved woman. Too bad. They just look like an anorexic pile of expensive fabric remnants.

Anyway, this has absolutely nothing to do with writing or conferences.

END OF DIGRESSION ]

Back to writing conferences…

Strangely enough, I tend to disagree with the conventional wisdom about what is useful about conferences. A lot of people go "to make contacts in the industry".

Fine.

Whatever.

Frankly, I don't think that is very useful until you have actually sold your book. If you have, then you need to go to conferences to meet the people who will put your book into bookstores and libraries.

If you haven't published, here's the thing: you can chat up as many agents and editors as you want, but your book is only going to be contracted by one of them if the story and writing are good enough. Your book will essentially sell itself if it is good enough. Until it is that good, you are wasting your time. No one is going to buy anything you write no matter how many drinks you buy for them or how friendly you are.

The only exception is if you are some sort of celebrity. Then your celebrity status may sell your first book for you. After that, if it doesn't do well, you're back to the old "is the story and writing strong enough?"

So, I totally don't believe in the value of networking until you are a published author. Then you need to cast your net about you to pick up contracts in the industry such as librarians and booksellers who may acquire your masterpiece, and nose around editors to see what the trends are, who is buying what, and so on for your next project.

Then, with tears in your eyes, you ask: What about the opportunity to pitch your book to a lucky agent or editor?

What about it? It's frankly a waste of good adrenalin and nervous tension. Because they are still going to read what you submit to them. And if it isn't good enough, it's rejected. They're aren't going to buy it because they met you face-to-face at the conference.

And here's the real secret: if your book is good enough to buy, they will buy it—even out of the slush pile! So you are no better off and if you have a tendency to ramble (the way I do—see above digression) then you are actually better off not pitching in that venue.

Perfect your pitch/query. With the help of a query vetting group, I've reached the point where 99% of my queries net a request for a partial.

When you reach that point, then just send the query letter. If they ask for a partial, send the partial. If it's good enough, they'll ask for the rest of the manuscript. If they like it, they'll buy it. That's the process. Pitching in person just makes you insanely nervous and crazy and for no good reason because you still have to go through exactly that same process. You may possibly get to send your completed manuscript first instead of the partial, but again, if it isn't good enough, all that will net you is a quicker rejection.

So you can be a cool, calm, rational person and send a query to start the process, or you can be a sweaty, tongue-tied person who pitched face-to-face. Both authors end up in the same queue. Naturally, if you prefer to make contacts and pitch face-to-face, then have at it. I'm just saying if this is not your preferred style and you are shy—don't worry about it. In the long run, it's your writing and your story that matter.

And that's it. It's your writing and your story that matter. Not buying rounds in the hotel bar for all the editors at the RWA conference.

This and That

We all think we know how to talk and write. We all think we communicate clearly, get our point across, and any idiot can understand us. And yet… How many times have you said something and then had someone reply or ask you a question that is so, well, on another planet entirely from what you were saying that you just stopped, completely nonplused?

Happens to me all the time. In conversations, e-mails, and my writing, I often feel like I'm speaking a completely different language from everyone else. I read what I've written and it makes perfect sense to me. Or I mentally review what I've said and it seems reasonable and not at all anything that someone else would take issue with. And yet…they do—take issue. Or, they don't—understand. And yet it all seems so clear and just fine to me.

I'm left with the odd feeling that I must not "speak good English". Or maybe I speak some really obscure form of English.

Whatever…

The thing is—I'm in a lot of writers groups and so many of them trash critique partners or say "they just don't have time for a critique partner" or other rather uppity things like that. My answer is: how much time do you have to rewrite? How much time do you have to revise over and over again because you're revising the wrong things because you have no clue what is really wrong?

Sure, it's hard to find a good critique partner who won't just say: Oh, this is great! Or one that won't just focus on where the commas ought to be placed. Or one that doesn't cut you to ribbons when you don't deserve it (versus cutting you to ribbons when you do deserve it and need to pay attention).

But I really think a good critique partner is worth his or her weight in gold. Because every time she wrinkles her nose, pauses, asks a question, re-reads a line, or glances away for a moment, those are places that need fixing. Can you find those places on your own? I don't know. Can you?

Mostly, I can't. Because I know what I mean—I wrote the darn thing. If I didn't know what I meant then not even the greatest critique partner on this planet is going to be able to help me. However, the fact of the matter is: if you wrote it, you understand it. But not everyone else will. What is an English garden to you may be a plot of nameless weeds to someone else. Worse, your English garden may be a loathsome, foully diseased plot to everyone else who reads your description. That's the value of a second opinion—in a word, a critique partner.

Now, it's true. Some really lucky writers have agents and no critique partners. Because the writer's agent is actually working not only as an agent but also as a critique partner. Oh, sure. The agent isn't reading every single word the way a critique partner might, but they are providing feedback to the author such as: This scene didn't work. And what the heck were you thinking when you wrote that the hero's head looked like a peeled cabbage? So someone, somewhere is often providing feedback even for those authors who have no time for critique partners.

For beginning writers: get a critique partner. Develop a thick hide. All those things you thought you were so good at—well, make sure you're not just kidding yourself. This is particularly true if you've written a lot of manuscripts and can't seem to get anywhere. You may be making the same mistakes over and over again because you haven't been able to identify what is wrong. And you have no one to point them out to you. Find someone who is going to be hard on you and listen to what they have to say. Think about it. Think hard and don't just dismiss stuff out of hand because you think the person "just doesn't understand". Or the person "just doesn't get your style of writing". Honestly, think about it.

Everyone needs feedback in order to improve their communication skills. Some reader comments are more useful than others. Many comments are completely contradictory. It's not always easy to sift through everything and figure out what—if anything—you are doing wrong.

The bottom line, however, is that you should always be open to comments, suggestions and new ideas. You have to grow or die. It's your choice.

Brain Dead

Sorry—it's going to be a lousy blog this week. One of our pets developed a heart issue and stopped eating, among other things. She was somewhere around seventeen years old as near as we can reckon. At least we got her seventeen years ago from the animal shelter and she was already an adult at that point, so she was at least that old. So, as you may have guessed, she passed away today and I'm wiped out.

And this incident was the culmination of several similar incidents this week that all seem related to attachments, emotional commitments, and why I'm such a crybaby. All I can hope is that this will someday make me a better writer. (Probably not, unfortunately, because being good at whining doesn't necessarily make others want to read your whines.)

It's been a rough couple of weeks for me because of animals. Two weeks ago, some jerk abandoned four puppies in a bean field about two miles from our house—in the middle of nowhere. We found them when we were out walking. The puppies were starved and covered with various parasites. We feed them and managed to get one adopted before we took the rest to the animal shelter. And at the animal shelter, there were already a variety of animals including two dogs some family said they just couldn't take with them because they were moving, and a lab that some woman brought to the shelter because the dog refused to let her in the house. (Now, why would a dog refuse to let its owner into the house? That really made me wonder.)

And yet there I was at the shelter, trying not to weep and feeling like a complete swine and duplicitous-betrayer for taking those puppies to the shelter—even though it was the best thing for them. They weren't even my puppies and I felt like shit. I still feel like shit, even though we did get one adopted and they do have a chance of adoption at the shelter where we took them.

So what I want to know is how those other people could just abandon their pets? Or abandon a litter of puppies in a field, miles from anyone, knowing that they would probably starve to death. What the hell is the matter with them? Don't they have any emotional attachments to anything beyond themselves?

I never thought of myself as the emotional type. I mean, any story described as "heart-warming" is an immediate turnoff. I can't stand weepy chick-flicks and if a book is billed as "makes you cry and laugh" then there is no way I'm going to read it. I'd rather read a good horror story any day. I've got enough problems without searching for more emotional jerking-around. I HATE to cry.

But I get deeply attached to things, like people and pets. I sure can't just abandon them and yet I see other people doing that all the time. I see spouses cheating on each other. I see families just throwing out dogs and cats down country lanes and I can't understand what the hell they are thinking. And yes, I consider the pets to be members of the family so it seems perfectly reasonable to talk about all family relationships, including pets, in this rant.

The only conclusion I can come to is that others either don't care or they are emotionally wired in a different way. They obviously don't form the deep attachments I'm accustomed to. They don't care if they hurt their spouse. They don't care if a pet dies a long and lingering death covered with parasites, diseased and starving. They just don't care.

And I just don't get it.

Maybe, ultimately, that's why I write. And in particular, why I gravitate toward writing mysteries. Because it is a mystery to me how mankind can be so desperately cruel and thoughtless. I'll probably never really understand it, and in answer to that inevitable question: Haven't you ever wanted to kill anyone? No. No, I have not. I've despised certain people, but I've never wanted to do damage to anyone. I don't know why. I'm not a particularly good person. I have the world's worst temper, however, I generally prefer just to curse a lot and write mean things in blogs. I don't like to destroy things. It makes me feel bad.

Writing, though, gives me an opportunity to try to understand these other people with their otherwise incomprehensible motivations and thought processes. I can develop scenarios where I think people who have these other behavior patterns might commit the ultimate crime. It's a way to try to make sense of the world around me and a way to deal with my oft-times uncomfortable emotions, such as grief.

There are no answers, only more questions: therefore, I must write.

Writing and Editing

So here I am slaving away, editing a manuscript and I'm thinking…how do these other authors produce books so quickly? Not that I can't write the initial draft quickly. In fact, I've written a 90,000 book in two months. But that's just the first draft. And I've even edited manuscripts in just a few months and given the results to my agent. Unfortunately, those results are never what you would call a quality product, however.

Because the thing is, it takes my mind time to go back through it and find all the little things that my subconscious planted but did not "elaborate on" when I wrote the manuscript.

Here's an example from one of my current projects. It's a contemporary mystery called Whacked! In one of the first scenes, the heroine's uncle finds a dead body by a stream running through the back of their property. Now, I had a good reason for that and I elucidated on that reason—which was fine. But after a few months, my subconscious has finally tapped my conscious mind on the shoulder and said, "You know that scene where the uncle finds the dead body? Well, here's the real reason why I wanted you to have the uncle find that body, even thought it was hard as heck to set up that scene and have the characters have decent motivation that made sense at the time."

Without time to allow that to percolate up to my conscious mind, the story would have been okay. It would have made sense. But it would be missing an entire range of meaning and depth which I now hope it will have. Assuming that I can work in all the elements I now see need to be in there.

If I was under a deadline, how would that work? I guess it would have to stand as it was originally, without the added depth.

It puzzles me greatly because I see these big long fat books written quickly by authors like Allison Brennan and I'm thinking: how the heck does she write that so quickly? How does she get the depth?

I have to write the first draft—or even just the first half—and then let it rest. Ideas percolate. I work on something else. I edit for sequencing issues, which is my big weakness. Thankfully, though, the process of editing for sequencing and continuity actually clarifies things and makes the entire manuscript improve in mysterious ways. Through this process, my subconscious hands me things I needed in the first draft but either didn't recognize or just failed to include. I also have to add descriptions, emotions and motivations since I have almost none of those things in the first draft. My first drafts tend to be bare bones action and dialog with occasional spurts of description, emotion and motivation when I feel guilty about not including those elements initially.

After following the classes given by Crusie and Mayer, I'm thinking that Crusie (at least) also has a similar method. She writes and then she rewrites. And rewrites. I'm not sure how quickly she can turn something out, but I get the feeling that her turnaround time is not just a couple of months.

If I had the time, I think an interesting task would be to find out how long an author took to do a particular book. Get that information for several authors and several books. Then compare books that took a year or more to write/rewrite versus books that just took a few months (if that). I'm really curious to see if there would be differences in the depth to the books, or it is really just a matter of how fast a particular author can write.

My personal experience as a reader has led me to believe that the faster a book is written, the more facile and shallow the story. Even stories that have seemingly complex/convoluted plots seem to just lack depth when they are produced quickly. But again, this is just my entirely subjective experience. I also base this upon what vague and incomplete information I have about how quickly certain authors churn out books and my reaction to their books. Completely unscientific.

Nonetheless, I do think that the one thing a writer should do is give herself (or himself) time to properly develop a story and edit it. And edit it. Until it achieves the depth and clarity it deserves.

Now I've got to end this for tonight because I really am working on editing and I'm trying to get a manuscript done so I can send it to my editor.

Happy Trails!

Edit the Manuscript; Lose the Voice

As I mentioned in previous blogs, I just suffered from another series of rejections. So I took the first chapters of several manuscripts I've been working on and ran them by an unbiased (and unrelated) third party. Discovered something interesting. Editing is not always a great and wonderful thing. My "least edited" chapters are the best. By far, the best.

The rejected manuscripts had been edited too much. I tried to make stories that ran around 90,000 words fit into 75,000 words and as a result, I removed most of my voice and almost everything that made the characters understandable: like internal dialog and motivation. I also cut out so much that what was left was confusing.

Yes, sometimes it is possible to take a 90,000 word manuscript and cut it down under 75,000, but only if you actually have unnecessary scenes and a lot of extra verbiage. Or a few extra characters and subplots. If you don't and your writing is fairly tight to begin with, when you cut it that drastically, you are probably going to end up with a mess. I certainly did.

Maybe it's just me, though, because Reader's Digest condensed books seem to read "just fine." But…anyway.

Good Editing

Good editing is mostly structural. You get rid of unnecessary scenes that don't support and advance the storyline. You add in those little clues and red herrings the mystery requires. You reorder your sentences so that events and actions occur in the proper sequence. You fix the grammar.

If you're like me, you also add in descriptions, clarify motivations, and make sure the reader can understand what is going on. (My first drafts often only include dialog and terse action. You do need some descriptions, though, and your characters have to have some thoughts, emotions and motivations. Not everyone can psychically pick up on a character's internal emotional life and motivations the way I can. Of course, it helps that I'm the one who created the characters.)

Bad Editing

Bad editing is where you piddle around too much with how you are saying things. It is okay to substitute a stronger verb for a weak verb/adverb combo, e.g. "he ambled" instead of "he walked slowly." It is not okay to massage your sentences until you lose the original verve and power. That, my friends, is how you lose your voice.

I'm not a big fan of all this voice stuff—I think everyone has a voice. Your voice consists of your word choices and how you put thoughts together. That's it—no big mystery. However, the editing process is dangerous, because you can take all the freshness and life out of your writing by polishing it to death. Removing words. Substituting words. Nit-picking. Deleting sentences you need or watering other sentences down to make them "more acceptable." The trick is to learn when to stop.

Actually, I think the real trick is to realize how to edit. You don't want to change the words, you just want to ensure they make sense in the order written. Check sequence and mechanics. Check for action.

Then let it go.

(Unless you've already edited the holy heck out of several manuscripts and need to put them back together again. In which case, you have my profoundest sympathy.)

Writing Remediation

With the help of another writer, I managed to figure out at least some of the issues keeping me from publishing a second book. A few of my problems are sequencing. There were several variations of this, some easy to fix, others more difficult. The good news is that they are all fixable.

If you've been writing for a while but still getting rejections, you might want to think about what I'm going to say. It's the kind of issue that may make you decide: this isn't my problem. But I urge you to reconsider.

Think about this. You get rejections that say your writing is competent but "not for us". Or, your critique partner marks passages that she says make no sense. But when you explain them to her, the paragraph you have written makes perfect sense to both of you. You think: What the heck was her problem that she didn't understand that? It was clearly written—she's got to be an idiot or had a brain fart or something. And so you move on to correct other things.

These may be symptoms of a sequencing issue.

Sequence issues can be broken down into a few categories. Each category has to be fixed in a different way and that is why you need to be able to separate them.

Attribution

This is this simplest and you can generally find them pretty easily.

Example

Beth and Joan went into the bar. She ordered a drink.

Beth is your heroine. When you wrote this, the scene was in your heroine's point of view so it seemed okay. In your mind, the "She ordered a drink" part is clearly Beth.

Or, perhaps because Joan was the last name referenced in the preceding sentence, you may think your reader will naturally know Joan ordered the drink.

It doesn't matter if it is clear to you as the author. It's not clear to the reader. You actually need to replace "She" with a name to make it clear which woman ordered the drink. Easy. That's a problem most writers catch on rewrites, although the occasional pronoun confusion still slips through at times.

Sequence and Causal Effect

This is much more difficult and it is one which causes me grief all the time. It is what makes others say my writing is confusing. Here is a simple summary of this issue. When humans read and process information, they make assumptions. In an action sequence, one assumption is that the action in the first sentence caused the action in the second sentence.

Example

There was a loud knock at the front door. Glancing up, Tricia screamed when a mouse scampered across the floor.

Interpretation

The innocent reader or critique partner will read this and say, "Huh? Why did Tricia scream at a knock on the door? Did it startle her or something?"

The author is going to reply, "Huh? I can't see what is so confusing about this. There was a knock at the door. THEN Tricia screamed BECAUSE she saw a mouse running across the floor. I SAID that. I SAID that she screamed when she saw a mouse scamper across the floor. There is nothing wrong with that paragraph."

The critique partner is then going to shrug and say, "Well, okay. I see that you wrote that Tricia screamed WHEN a mouse scampered across the floor. I guess it's okay. Maybe you should just replace 'when' with 'because'."

Author said, "Oh, fine. I'll do that."

But that is NOT OKAY. It does not address the problem.

The human brain is going to read the first sentence, which indicates there was a knock at the door. The innocent reader is now waiting for a reaction. The reaction they read next is that Tricia glanced up and screamed. By the time the reader gets to "when a mouse scampered across the floor" the reader is confused. Or the reader is making the assumption that the loud knock startled Tricia and she's a nervous woman who screams when someone knocks at the door. Then Tricia saw the mouse. Or whatever.

You've now lost both your reader and your potential publishing contract.

So that paragraph needs to be rewritten to reestablish the causal relationship between the sentences and the sequence of events.

Corrected Example

There was a loud knock at the front door. The sudden noise scared a mouse out of hiding and it scampered over the carpet just as Tricia glanced toward the door. Tricia screamed at the sight of the rodent running toward her…

You see the difference?

The loud knock scared the mouse. The mouse scared Tricia. That is the sequence and causal relationships. If you change the order around it will be confusing no matter how clearly you write the second sentence.

Too Much Action in One Sentence

This one is also difficult. I have a tendency to try to write economically and densely. When I was a programmer, I'd do anything to save one byte and made the code more efficient. I have a habit of wanting cut out all "unnecessary" words and transitions. I want to pack everything I can into once sentence. Unfortunately, what works with computers does not work with people. We need time to process information. We need to see what is going on. Most importantly, we need transitions if characters are going to move from one place to another.

Example

The carriage came to an abrupt halt. Before Chilton could react, the footmen opened the carriage door and escorted him into the library.

Interpretation

The innocent reader or critique partner will read this and say, "Huh? How did he suddenly get into the library? I thought he was sitting motionless in the carriage."

The defensive author is going to say, "What? I said, the footmen opened the carriage door and escorted him into the library. Obviously, if they escorted him into the library, he wasn't still sitting in the carriage. He's now in the library. Sheesh."

The critique partner is going to say, "Oh, okay. Fine. Whatever. So now he's in the library."

There was just way too much action packed into that sentence without any transitions. The reader couldn't follow along properly. One minute Chilton was in the carriage, the next he's in the library, with no transition or sense of movement in between except that one, paltry word "escorted."

Corrected Example

The carriage came to an abrupt halt. Before Chilton could react, the footmen opened the carriage door. They yanked him out and escorted him up the front steps and through the front door. Then, before he could summon up a protest, they marched him straight down the hall and into the library.

You see the difference?

Now I'm not saying this is deathless prose in the corrected examples. In fact, the writing is still pretty bad, but at least it doesn't leave you with the feeling of having missed something. Or maybe it does.

But at least it's a start and I feel like I've learned something.

An Open Door

Wow, it's already Wednesday. I usually update my blog on Tuesday, but I got sidetracked. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say I stumbled onto the train tracks on four separate occasions and got hit. I'm still reeling a little. Mostly because I don't seem to learn. My inability to learn can summed up with a certain bitter poignancy as:

1. I've yet to learn that I'm a pathetic excuse for a writer.
   
2. I've yet to learn how to write real, as opposed to caricature, characters.
   
3. I've yet to learn how to plot.
   
4. And I've yet to learn how to actually write. As in, create understandable prose.
   

As you might already have guessed, I got my first review for my first book this week. It was pretty bad. Oh, not the review—that was very well written. My book is apparently pretty bad. To quote:

It is a shame that Michael and Margaret couldn't have their story told in a more organized and better thought out way. I had trouble following the action, and couldn't quite picture what was supposed to be happening and by whom. The narrative was just too jumpy. The storyline isn't awful, but the author's style needs improvement for me to want to read her again.

So you can see how that relates to numbers 3 and 4, above.

And then, to reinforce this learning experience, I got three rejections which pretty much puts paid to everything I have completed at this point. The rejections covered items 2, 3, and 4, as in:

The writing was occasionally stilted and forced and many of the secondary characters came across as caricatures. …[And] the story felt a bit uneven…

However, as a whole the manuscript lacked the strength and life to continue on in our process.

One issue that I repeatedly found is that you have a tendency to throw multiple thoughts into one sentence making it difficult for the reader to follow.

…however, several of them come across as caricatures rather than fully realized people. This is especially true for Helen and Archer. I didn't connect with the hero or heroine very strongly—especially the heroine. The repetition of ideas got to be a little frustrating and several of the jokes and threads of suspicion fell flat. I didn't buy into the romance and found the writing on the whole to not be as strong…

Okay. I think that about covers it. Looking at those, item number 1 above should be fairly obvious.

Now why on earth would I share this information with anyone? Because of number 1.

Obviously, I have room for improvement. Vast expanses of green field just waiting for me. Lots of ways to make hay. For example, I could fix my prose. Or, I could fix my characters. Or I could correct my prose, my plots, and my characters. I could learn how to write.

But all of those things require that I actually continue writing and don't actually accept item number 1. Maybe that's wrong. Maybe I should say that I accept that I may be the world's most pathetic and awful writer at the moment and I may never be a brilliant writer (because one could argue I have no talent if I can't do a single thing well) but I can be a better writer than I am at this moment.

The only way to become a better writer is to continue writing. Yes, I agree that some people are gifted. Some folks are brilliant with characterization. Some have astounding plots that leave you gasping at each twisting turn. Other writers have such gorgeous prose that you can't help but read them just to hear the melody of their words. So maybe I'm not one of those writers. Maybe I have to sweat and slave over each small improvement. Maybe nothing comes easily. Maybe I have no strengths as a writer, only weaknesses.

Maybe my published book was a fluke. (Perhaps it is a bad fluke, but it was published so it must be at least marginally better than anything else I've written in the last five years.)

But no one said writing is easy and there is always something new to learn. When you stop learning, you're either dead or a quitter. Of the two, I have no control over the dead part, but I don't intend to be a quitter. (I know—I could always kill myself—but again, I'm not a quitter.)

In the end, all the rejections and reviews are doors. You can open them, look inside, and perhaps learn something. Or you can lock yourself out of that opportunity.

So for other writers out there: if you're talented, great! I don't know why you're reading this or how much you'll get out of it, but whatever. For those who are suffocating under a few pounds of rejections, just keep going. That's all. Keep learning and keep going. You can't possibly be any worse than I am. J

That's it for my motivational speech. Now get back to work.

Argument

I almost posted an email on the Crusie & Mayer blog to apologize to them for my incessant arguing when they are spending a great deal of time sharing their writing knowledge, but I refrained because I wasn't sure how that would come across, either. So I'm posting it here, instead.

You see, I argue to understand. The process of arguing lets me think through a new idea, poke at it, come up with exceptions, and then in the long run, understand how to implement or adopt it.

Unfortunately, that is not how that process comes across to other people. This point was vividly brought home to me by a brief conversation with my mother, a few months prior to her death.

"I wish you wouldn't argue about everything," my mom said.
"But I'm not really arguing," I replied.
Mom sighed. "You always argue--you always have. Why can't you just do what we ask for once without arguing?"
"I usually do end up doing what you suggested--I do listen to what you say."
"But not without arguing about it first and by the time you're convinced or do something, I'm already tearing my hair out because you're so stubborn."

That's the problem. I know I seem stubborn because I argue about everything, but I'm helpless to stop that behavior. It seems to be essential for me to process new information and understand how to deal with it. How to make it fit.

To other people, I just seem argumentative and by the time I actually DO do what they say, they already feel like they've lost the argument and any sense of satisfaction is gone (when I do end up doing what they asked). And I'm sorry for this, because I--on the other hand--feel like "things went really well" and that we're all in sync with one another when I do work it out.

Mostly because to me it's not an argument, it's a debate. And I can get all fired up but five minutes later, I'm smiling again and don't have that lingering aftertaste you get with a real argument. That's really the difference between a debate and an argument. You get just as emotional and fired up with both of them, but when a debate is over there are no hard feelings. At least on my part. I can't remember five minutes later what it was about and an hour later, I've worked the suggestion into my mental processes to the point where I'm perfectly comfortable with it.

I mean, like this whole "you can't have characters hiss, sigh, moan, groan, or whatever in dialog when you write." I argued about this on the Crusie/Mayer workshop. In point of fact, during recent years, I actually haven't had any characters hiss/sigh/moan/groan dialog. I use said and reply most of the time. But I still needed to work through that argument because it's the way my mind works and I wanted to work out if there were any exceptions or things to "watch out for".

If I'm not arguing about something, it's because I either don't care about it, and/or I am NOT going to do it (so there's no point in discussing it). A lot of people I work or associate with have never actually realized this, but if I don't argue the point, THAT'S when the other person has a problem with me. Because I'm most likely not going to concede their point or do what they want and I don't care enough about it to talk about it. Silence is not golden nor is it accorde. It is the absence of sound and therefore, an absence of agreement.

So, apologies to Jen and Bob for my incessant arguments, but realize that this means I am taking what you say to heart and trying to work it into my writing.

Why doesn’t my Blackberry work? And other Techno-geek problems…

This one entry in my blog is a techno-geek blog and not a whiny writer's entry or even an entry about writing in general. Sorry. Next week. Or see my previous entry which sort of mashed my techno-geek and writing side together in a very uncomfortable mix.

So. You've been warned.

So. For all you desperate admins out there searching the Internet for help on why some of your users' Blackberry's aren't working…or why some of your users can't publish their certificates to the GAL…or why some of the permissions you've delegated in Active Directory don't seem to work all the time…or other anomalies like that…

This blog is for you.

Why Things Just Don't Work As Expected

Having problems with permissions in AD? Problems with Blackberries? Weird anomalies when trying to reset passwords?

I thought so.

Sometimes being an enterprise administrator for a very large organization is just…depressing. Since we've upgraded to Windows 2003, I've learned that Microsoft is serious about best practices such as not using your standard, mail-enabled/mailbox-owning user account for administrative tasks. And I've grown serious about it, too since I've begun to appreciate security. Now, I'm so serious that I'm thinking fondly of starting the Guido School of Admin Training (with sincere apologies to any existing Guidos or schools already named thusly).

Our Guido School of Admin Training is a very informal school held outside in the nice, fresh air in the alley between two office buildings. There are no formal registration procedures, however you do have to be nominated to attend. Admins just need to show up for class to begin.

What to expect: The instructor, Guido, will shake your hand and then gently haul you over to the nearest wall by your collar. Then it becomes really exciting and lots of fun. With a jaunty smile, Guido grabs you securely by the back of the neck and smacks your face against the wall while saying in a firm tone of voice:

Do
{smack}
not
{smack}
nest
{smack}
security
{smack}
groups
{smack}
into
{smack}
protected
{smack}
groups.

And then, after a slight pause for refreshments:

Do
{smack}
not
{smack}
place
{smack}
standard
{smack}
mail-enabled/mail-box associated
{smack}
user
{smack}
accounts
{smack}
into
{smack}
protected
{smack}
groups.

Now, if you can repeat what you just learned, you receive a diploma and a short ride to the nearest hospital.

Our school guarantees success. For the rest of their life, students will remember what they've been taught, even if they imprinted on Windows NT and never learned any other operating system and refuse to use an administrative account because it's just too much trouble. Even if they repeatedly put a group containing all 8,000 users in their domain (within your AD tree, mind you) into Domain Admins because they thought that would be the simplest way to deploy something, say, a patch. And after they remove the group containing all the users from Domain Admins and they suddenly get a rash of calls about how all the managers' Blackberrys are all broken, they call you to fix it.

If this happens, it's time to send the admin to Guido's school, so just take the bull by the horns and nominate them.

Because now you have to deal with the admincount attribute.

You see, protected groups are special. They need to be special because in the past, fanatical admins have removed critical permissions from key groups instead of simply not putting unnecessary admin accounts into those groups to begin with. After removing critical permissions, these fanatics have lost control of their domain, or worse, their AD Tree or even Forest. Okay, maybe that's not the entire reason for protecting these key groups, but it is certainly one good reason. There are a lot of others and this blog isn't long enough for all of them.

So in Windows 2003, Microsoft helped admins avoid such idiocy by developing a mechanism to put back critical permissions on certain key groups called protected groups. Organizations which follow best practices for administration and security are most likely completely unaware of this secret mechanism and don't need to worry about it. If you follow best practices, it will have no impact on you and never will. You deserve to be worshiped as the deity you obviously are.

For the rest of us, we need to learn this rule: You don't put standard user accounts associated with a mailbox into any protected group; and you don't nest groups into protected groups (because you lose track of what you nested and could potentially nest groups containing standard user accounts into protected groups and elevate permissions that should not be elevated).

If you violate this rule, the admincount attribute will afflict you mightly. (And yes, I used "afflict" on purpose so don't leave me a lot of obnoxious comments about that. It's funny. Laugh, darn you.)

Protected Groups

What are the protected groups? With Windows 2003, they include:

Schema Admins

Enterprise Admins

Cert Publishers

Domain Admins

Account Operators

Print Operators

Administrators (domain local)

Server Operators

Backup Operators

How are they protected?

One piece of the mechanism protecting these special groups is an attribute called the admincount.

• The protected groups have the admincount attribute set to 1.
  
• Any group or user account nested into a protected group gets the admincount set to 1.
  
• Any user nested into a group nested into a protected group gets the admincount set to 1.
  

The only exception is if there is a user account or group from another domain in your AD tree nested into a protected group, like the domain local Administrators group. The group/accounts from the other domain will not be affected. (But that does not mean you should be a knucklehead and use your standard, mailbox-associated user account for administrative purposes in other domains. Come on, grow up.)

Normally, the admincount is not set at all (it is null).

Every fifteen minutes or so, the operating system looks for the admincount attribute. If it finds it, it does some interesting things. It removes inheritance from the object so it will not inherit the permissions it might once have inherited from its parent OU or OU structure. This prevents unfortunate things from happening if you move one of the protected groups out of the Builtin container to a different OU or container where you might have diddled with the permissions it inherits might cause a breach of security or worse. Like a Help Desk person with full control over a user OU suddenly gaining full control over Domain Admins because some knuckle-dragging yahoo put Domain Admins into that OU. Stuff like that.

In addition, if an object like a user account has the admincount attribute set, the system strips certain key permissions granted to that account or group by the schema definition for that object type at the moment of creation. Specifically, most of the SELF permissions. These are the permissions that let a user account, for example, publish a certificate to AD (and hence, to the global address list or GAL if you are running a product like Exchange 2003).

So this could have the impact of preventing a user from publishing a cert.

Or it may break a user's Blackberry if the user happens to be put into a group like Domain Admins, because generally the Blackberry's service account is granted permissions through the OU hierarchy. These permissions for the BB service account are necessary for the service account to send/receive mail to/from the user's Blackberry to their Exchange mailbox. So if the user's account is affected by the admincount attribute, it will stop inheriting permissions from the OU, the BB service account will not get the permissions it needs, and this user will have a brick instead of a Blackberry.

Just a few examples. I've also seen it cause apparent permission anomalies where an admin grumbles that AD is broken or doesn't work well because sometimes they can't manage an object they supposedly have permissions to manage. When I get that type of call, the first thing I check is if the admincount attribute is set on either the admin's account or on the object they are trying to manage. Most of the time, one or the other (or both) has the attribute set and it's time to nominate the admin for my special school.

Because if a user object can't inherit permissions and has some self-permissions removed, how well do you think you're going to be able to manage an account with delegated permissions? How well will an account thus damaged work with inherited and/or delegated permissions? Not well, my friend. Not well at all.

The Kicker

Once a user account ( or group) is "contaminated" by the admincount attribute, it doesn't come clean just by removing the user account or group from the protected group. Oh, no. You have to fix it.

The nice thing about this is that you can always tell when some admin really needs to meet Guido out in the alley. You can just run ldifde and export a file containing all the users and groups with the admincount attribute set to 1. And of course the event logs on your domain controllers will show membership changes to protected groups so if you catch the problem soon after it occurs, you can see exactly who needs that training.

Here is an example of the ldifde command that will provide you with a text file called ac.txt of all users and groups with the admincount set in a domain (in the example, the domain is example.com):

Ldifde –f ac.txt –d dc=example,dc=com –l samaccountname –r "(admincount=1)"

Note: I like to include the samaccountname attribute in the output (it will by default include the distinguished name) because it helps me in other processes—but this is entirely optional.

You might think that the admincount is a bad thing. It is not. It is your friend because it shows when you are not following best practices and are, in fact, endangering the security of your enterprise. So I'm not in favor of turning off this functionality.

I'm in favor of training and implementing best practices that create a reasonable security model based on the use of a separate account for administration. This secondary account should not be mailbox enabled or associated with a mailbox.

Fixing It

Here is how to fix it if things weren't done exactly right in the past. I will warn you, however, that if you have a lot of user accounts affected (as I have had to fix multiple times for multiple domain admins) this can be a somewhat time consuming process, even if you script it up.

Fix Protected Group Membership

First, you must make sure you undo the cause, which is to say, make sure you don't have any groups nested into protected groups. If you do, remove them. There is no point in trying to cleanse things if you leave the source of contamination. Leaving groups nested into the protected groups means at some future date, you will be addressing this same problem again because people forget and put the wrong accounts into "innocent looking" groups.

So remove all nested groups and remove all standard user accounts that are associated with a mailbox. Just leave your agreed-upon administrative accounts which can and should have the admincount attribute set. Naturally, you won't be an idiot and remove all the accounts before you add the new administrative accounts, because you might find yourself suddenly unable to actually add the new admin accounts, particularly if you empty out Domain Admins without putting any new accounts into it, first. (Just an FYI. I know you know these things but I like to state the obvious. It's so satisfyingly…obvious.)

Clean the Groups and Users Removed

Once you have removed any nested groups and innocent user accounts, you can clean them. You have to clean both the user accounts and the nested groups, if any.

First, reset the admincount attribute to 0 (or null) on the nested groups and users. Null is best, but 0 will work and sometimes it is nice to set it to 0 because you then have a historical artifact you can search for later if you have other issues. A 0 will tell you that this user or group was afflicted by the admincount at one point. (Just as you are afflicted by whichever admin did this to the user or group.)

For one or two users and groups, you can simply edit them in adsiedit.msc, which will allow you to reset the admincount attribute. You can also script it up if you wish. (I use a script for bulk cleaning.)

If you are using adsiedit.msc, you should take the following steps:

• Right click the user (or group) and select Properties.
  
• On the Attribute Editor tab, find the admincount attribute. Select it and click the [Edit] button. Click on the [Clear] button (or set the value to 0 if you want the historical artifact). Click [Ok].
  
• Select the Security tab
  
• Click on the [Advanced] button. Click on the [Default] button. This will restore the removed permissions PLUS it will put a check mark next to the "Allow inheritable permissions…" box, which you want.
  
• Click on [Ok] until you close out that user's properties.
  

Unfortunately, as you see, in addition to clearing the admincount, you have to reset (turn on) inheritance for that object (group or user). Finally, you must give it back the permissions that object normally gets when it is first created. These permissions are not inherited, they are defined in the schema for that object and are granted to the object when it is created. If you use certificates, you're going to want these permissions and that's why the [Default] button is so handy. It restores all those things for you.

DSACLS can also be used to restore inheritance and reset an object back to its default "state" by using the /P:N /S switches.

There is obviously a lot more to be said about this, including administrative practices, best practices, and security whys & wherefores, but I'll be here all day if I don't stop somewhere.

There is a relevant KB article, "Delegated permissions are not available and inheritance is automatically disabled" KB817433, but I don't recommend doing the workaround. In fact, I generally don't like referencing that KB article because it includes that workaround and some knuckleheads always want to do the workaround instead of just tackling the problem and fixing it properly.

I recommend doing things the right way so you don't have to deactivate something that is there to help you and prevent you from doing something really egregiously stupid that could cost you the control of your domain or AD forest.

So…enough already.

Good night and sweet dreams.

Life in general

So this isn't my first blog this week, but you probably didn't realize that. I'm a charter member of Romance Writers of America (RWA) and after getting the June issue, I wrote a very different blog. Posted it and left it up for 24 hours and then deleted it, mostly because I'm trying to find ways to deal with frustration and not simply stroke out. I won't bore you with the details of my first post—I was simply upset because I may have trouble maintaining my published author status with RWA even though I actually have published, have an agent, and am working on publishing more titles.

However, the last few weeks have just been increasingly stressful and it makes me wonder why so many people are so determined to make life difficult. It's like they go out of their way to complicate simple issues instead of just doing the easy, straight-forward solution. It's wearing me down.

Like at my day job. I'm an enterprise admin in Information Technology (IT) for a very large organization—we have over 250,000 users and computers, if that gives you any idea. And a very small part of what I do is help roll out national projects. This is a very small part, mind you. Most of what I do is very unglamorous work with domain controllers, directory services, DNS, WINS, and other techno-geek, backroom stuff that no one has ever heard of and doesn't want to know about. In fact, I'm probably one of a handful of experts on a little know mechanism that exhibits itself via an attribute called the admincount on objects in Active Directory (AD) and prevents a Blackberry from working for users affected by this, as well as preventing them from publishing certificates to AD and so on. Like I said, no one wants to hear this stuff, least of all you. (However, I am actually going to publish two blogs tonight and the second one is going to be on the admincount attribute so if you're a techno-geek who is really into this stuff, you can look at that, later.)

But I am telling you this as a way of segueing into this topic of how humans seem to love making it difficult. So, I have this little side effort going on to do a simple deployment of a simple project. And I get it done all across the country until I get to the west coast of the U.S. These guys, in their brilliant arrogance had decided that the rest of us ignorant savages don't know what we're doing and so they can't possibly implement this the way the rest of the country has implemented it already. They have to reverse engineer it because they are convinced they know better. I mean, if they can't be involved in the development of every single project in our organization, then it's just up to these guys to break it apart and change it to suit their whims. It doesn't matter if changing the project may impact the security and expose information that should not be exposed or that another system was tested and granted FDA-approval as medical equipment and therefore should not be changed without changes being properly documented and tested since it might affect patient care and safety. Oh, no. These guys know better.

And so instead of a simple deployment, they refuse to do things the right way. The easy way. And even they have a change management system they insist everyone in their area follow, they are perfectly content to refuse to allow us to use our change management system and not change things without testing in the middle of a deployment. People might say, well, that's just your opinion. No. This is not my project. I had nothing to do with it. I was handed a finished project and told to deploy it and I'm following the directions. I would never assume that I knew better than the developer and that I could change the system mid-stream, particularly since I know that changing any medical system that is FDA-approved is at a minimum just bad judgment.

So that's my example of how people take a simple thing and make it difficult and stressful and why I'm probably going to stroke out.

Because not being content with a stressful day job in IT, I just had to start a writing career, too. And did I pick the easy road to publication? Did I write nice romances for a great company like Harlequin or write really hot romances that could be best sellers for a company like Avon? Heck no. I had to choose the hard road. I had to start out with writing a romantic comedy for the Harlequin Duets line which folded right after I submitted my manuscript (which they actually held for two years because they liked it—but not after Duets folded).

Then, did I learn my lesson? Heck no, again. I then wrote a traditional Regency. Got an agent. Kensington and Signet stopped publishing traditional Regencies. All right—two for two! And did I learn my lesson, yet? Heck no. What did I write next? I wrote a Regency-set mystery which pretty much no one publishes. Well, there are a few, but they are already pretty well stocked with all the Regency-set mysteries they want from their stable of writers and sort of don't need any more. Particularly not stories that are really kind of romantic mysteries set in the Regency period.

Did that stop me? No, of course not. I wrote four of them. But I also wrote a vampire story that has a romance in it, but it's not really hot, sensuality-wise, because I was actually interested in other issues in the story. So I sort of took a well-selling genre and wrote the story least likely to sell. I can hear my agent sighing…heavily and mournfully in the background.

Am I developing a trend here? Am I just making it difficult for myself? Yes, I guess so. I'd like to think I'm not being as arrogant as the guys from the west coast in my day job, but on the other hand, maybe all the other writers are looking at me and pointing their fingers, saying: if she just wasn't so arrogant and would just write commercial fiction in a well-selling genre, she might not have so many difficulties. She just won't follow the rules. Why is she trying to write Regency-set romantic mysteries, especially ones without long, explicit sex scenes and hot, lingering glances?

Except, I thought writers were supposed to write things they might actually enjoy reading. And I'm taking all kinds of writing classes and listening to all the experts like Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer (who are fabulous writers and very generous with their time and advice) and my goal is to be the best writer there is. Of Regency-set romantic mysteries. Which may simply be mutually exclusive, especially if I continue to write what the characters and story demand instead of shoving in a lot of long, explicit sex scenes and things like "he stroked the pearl at the very core of her being as she moaned with ecstasy".

(At this point, I'm sure Crusie and Mayer are thinking: hmmm, if she's really listening to us, she wouldn't be writing this junk and she'd maybe be a best selling author by now. Why is she making this so hard? Write a freaking sex scene, for heaven's sake, and get over it. Grow up if you want to be a successful author.)

Okay, I might even write a few contemporary, romantic mysteries which I will consider romantic even without explicit scenes and pearls of anyone's essences. Darn, I guess that's not really listening, is it?

Okay, I guess I am arrogant and making it hard on myself. I really don't know, but I do know if I don't learn to take a deep breath and put it all behind me, I probably will stroke out. Soon.